Posts Tagged ‘Donation Items’

Extreme Fishing

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

So, a while back, a lot of folks were asking me about fishing updates. Lots of stuff like “Extreme Bass is too vicious” and “you can’t see your skill gains in any meaningful sense.” And I warned people that would require a complete rewrite of fishing and we just couldn’t justify putting it in.

Then I realized I could cheat it on to the schedule by combining it with this month’s donation item. Yeah, that’s right! Kinak (me), stickin’ it to The Man (also me) for your benefit!

So if your fishing (and chess by happenstance of using the same system) are working a bit differently from before… that’s because it’s totally different. I did carry over people’s ratings, although the labels have changed.

In completely related news, Zack has his unearthly-coin-loving hands on some equipment intended for the Extreme Bass XIII release party.

Cheers!
Kinak

March’s Unearthly Item – Feathered Cloak

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

A little festive, a little Midgard, and two coins worth of crazy.

There’s a lot going on with it. Like, lots and lots. It’s probably my favorite since the puzzle box and might take just as long to figure out entirely. But don’t quote me on it :)

Zack, as always, has the details.

Cheers!
Kinak

February Donation Item – Hungry Ooze

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

What do you get when you mix experimental chemicals, cutting edge microbiotics, a pet rock, and random items from your inventory? Probably something like this month’s donation item.

It’s a one coin item, so not too much going on. Okay, there’s a lot going on, but not as much as if I’d let myself go nuts. More nuts.

Oh and, before anyone asks, there’s no special benefit from having the whole set. It’ll make more sense when you see the item. Tempting from a design stand-point, but jerky from a donation standpoint, so I avoided it.

Cheers!
Kinak

Festive Knit Hat

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Zack has a new item available at his House of Coins in Southside, in case you’ve been cold with all the snow.

As a one coin item, it’s pretty straightforward. After the last podcast, I decided to try my hand at an actually simple item.

It shouldn’t be hard to use or require terrifying puzzlesolving skills, but it still isn’t quite what it appears at first glance… or second glance. The third glance should do the trick, though.

I’m pretty sure this is as simple as I can bring myself to make an item. Feel free to drop over to the forums to discuss it and tell me if I nailed the simpleness, need to try harder, or should stick to weaving complex layered narratives pretending to be item abilities.

Cheers!
Kinak

Urban Legends, Vol. I

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

The october donation item is in. It’s just a little something, not a huge block of content, but it has a lot of neat stuff going on.

A few things that you’ll probably want to know before deciding whether you want to grab it:

  • It grants the first permanent (cross-reset) skill.
  • It’s a one coin donation item, which means it’s primarily self-contained and focused on uses rather than content. It also means its mysteries shouldn’t still be bugging people in four months.
  • Its mechanics are inspired by Kingdom of Loathing’s Librams, so a huge shout out is in order there :) Thanks!

Before anyone asks about other skills being made permanent: Not yet.

Cheers!
Kinak

OmniMall Upgrades Servers

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

OmniMall has gone through some upgrades and will now remember any item that has been listed there for future searches, even if that item isn’t currently listed or in your inventory. The data began recording today, so items not currently in OmniMall should show permanently the next time they are listed.

There are some other updates as well:

  • Resolves some issues with today’s new donation item. Many thanks to Al, Zelandoni, and PaidPiedPiperPal for helping me sort this out.
  • Corrected some strange issues that occurred when trying to target destroyed hacking defenses. Thanks, Mag!
  • Fixed the link back from the donations page. Good catch, Ricket!
  • Vigilante encounters in the Sewers shouldn’t refer to Fangs’ setbacks that haven’t occurred. Thanks for keeping me honest, Thrillhouse :)
  • Network Scan and Eavesdropping Tools now allow you to see alerts like the Network Interpreter does. Good suggestion, Llamaman and Argeth!
  • Also fixed some typos thanks to Dfmchfhf, PaidPiedPiperPal, and particularly Mag.

Cheers!
Kinak

Zack’s House of Coins

Monday, September 14th, 2009

It’s that time again! Zack has a new item available at the cost of two unearthly coins.

Like the first two coin item (the Mysterious Puzzle Box), this one has a lot of content. Unlike the box, it’s a bit more sprawling, tying in to the crafting system in a bunch of more and less subtle ways. Zack, as always, has some hints on where to start.

There is also a thread on the forum for discussion and a celebratory hint about the puzzle box.

Cheers!
Kinak

New Item at Zack’s House of Coins

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

We have a new item at Zack’s House of Coins, the Prototype Coat.

It’s the first one coin donation item, being far less complex than the puzzle box. Even so, I couldn’t really help myself, most of the coat’s abilities will probably still need a bit of figuring out.

Like the puzzle box, it’s a bit of a swiss army knife, but the way it achieves that is totally different. Anyway, I think it’s pretty damned cool and effective without as complex and fidgety. I hope you like it.

Also a couple changes real quick:

  • The Gang Warfare pane in the Gang tab will give feedback based on whether you’re actually ready for gang warfare (having engaged in enough combat since opting to join).
  • Modify checked in messages now gives feedback on what it did. Thanks for the suggestion, Mr. Green.
  • The quest log now gives appropriate feedback if you’ve deleted Mikhail’s message. Thanks for the head’s up, Soulmech!
  • And some typo fixes from Thrillhouse, The Kitchen Sink, and Rykar. Thanks you three!

Cheers!
Kinak

Donation Items and Beta Reset

Monday, June 15th, 2009

After a lot of deep-thinking and soul-searching, we have a temporary answer to the question “I just donated, can I use my presents after resetting?” If you’re asking that question, go ahead and talk to Zack, he may have something for you.

For now, you’ll just receive your coins and puzzle boxes. I’m still not entirely clear on the path going forward, but wanted to get some sort of solution in for people.

So we’re 100% clear: this is just the plan for Beta. The final system that replaces it will have a lot more options, but probably will not include this one.

Thanks to everyone for their input on this. Hopefully this’ll take care of things for the time being.

Cheers!
Kinak

Zack’s House of Coins

Monday, June 8th, 2009

The first donation item is now up! Check out Zack at Mikhail’s in Southside for some details.

It has a lot going on, more than many donation items probably will. It lets you interact with attributes in a couple of new ways, has several forms, and can be upgraded as you learn its secrets. Using it works sort of outside the normal Energy structure, so you can play with it without worrying about running all your Energy out.

I think it’s pretty cool, but I’m new at this whole “donation item” thing, so we’ll see how it turns out together.

This item will rotate out eventually, but it probably won’t be for quite a while. I’ll give quite a bit of notice before that happens.

As a side note, the item is only tradable in one form. You can change it back and forth from that form, so it’s not soul bound or anything, it’ll just work better if there aren’t four versions of the item in the Mall.

On a people are awesome note: unearthly coins were being duplicated due to a bug briefly today and both people who the bug affected reported it. Three cheers for ThrillHouse and PaidPiedPiperPal. Hip hip huzzah!

Cheers!
Kinak